This Place of Gods
by donahermurphy
Summary: AU of SQ's Dreaming of Sunshine. There's a hole in the world, now. Chakra doesn't work there. Turns out a permanent chakra deadzone between Konoha and Kumo gets a lot of awkward questions asked, especially if it's still populated by civilians. (Except in that one place. No one goes there).


Remember that part of the Land of Hot Springs Arc when chakra stops working? What-if Jashin's defeat- and the repercussions of his brief entrance into the world- had gone a little differently?

NOTE: First, italicized scene borrows heavily from the SQ's scene in DOS, as that's the moment where the deviation occurs- I wanted to emphasize how slight initial changes could still result in a really different outcome.

**This Place of Gods**

_My seal pulsed with energy. The center of the room started to collapse inwards, a single black point that would swallow us all whole._

_"No!" the leader screamed, even as Jashin howled in my head in impotent rage. He thrust his staff out at the black point- and as he did, the other monks behind him grew gaunt, then wizened, then finally fell as desiccated corpses. The staff glowed with the power their lives had given._

_I watched, numbly, in the flicker frames of still time._

_"No," the leader screamed again, taking another step toward that black point, aging decades with the space of a breath. Jashin screamed, too, as more and of it was swept away into the darkness, as the crest of blood and life energy that was supposed to open its gate was instead diverted by my seal into something that would swallow it whole. _

_But the staff moved ever closer to that black point, still glowing with the lives of the monks. The leader seemed to crumble into dust even as he held it. _

_But then the black point- vanished. _

_There was a moment of terrible, terrible stillness._

_The monks and their leader were no longer there for Jashin to reach through, but Jashin was still there. Still terribly present and watching._

_And then-_

_-something inside yanked and tore me away._

* * *

After the tribe heals her, after they reverse the summons and send her back to the place that hurt her so, Heijomaru waits.

Heijomaru's summoner puts no chakra into the call, but he feels the summon take hold nonetheless.

It is technically not a part of their agreement. Usually, human summoners draw those of his tribe to their world, gifting their chakra and strengthening the tribe as it searched among them for those who would respond.

The tribe could in turn draw humans into their lands for brief times. However, chakra from a human on such a visit would not go to the members of tribe- rather, it would seep into and strengthen _the land_ of the tribe, perhaps drawing more covetous neighbors than Heijomaru and the others could safely handle.

And then, if the human stayed long enough, too much of its strength might continue to go into the land, which would take more and more greedily the longer one stayed.

And then, of course, the human would die.

Not all places in the summons realm are so, but the tribe does not live in a _tame_ forest.

* * *

Heijomaru emerges in building thick with the smell of blood. There are wizened, near-mummified human corpses on the ground. There are other human corpses split open and chained, trails of blood feeding into great stone furrows on the ground. Those furrows, all filled with blood, stretched across the entirety of the room to form a symbol.

There is none of the chakra that usually flows freely in this realm. Something in the unseen bedrock of this land is missing, and there is both more and less than there was before. It feels like a hole in the fabric of this world has been ripped open, and there is something on the other side staring through it.

There is something unseen watching them, and it is evil.

He can feel it. He can taste it.

"Heijomaru," his summoner whispers, wild-eyed and trembling. Her eyes dart towards the door. To escape, towards whatever roads she must walk in the human world to lead her home. "Heijomaru, I can reverse the summon. If you need me to."

Her voice is small. She, too, can feel the thing watching them. She knows there is no chakra to grasp to defend herself.

His summoner is offering to send him home.

"Summoner," Heijomaru says instead. "You should get on my back."

Heijomaru has not often run without chakra, but every young buck takes at least one trek through the Bare Lands. This will not be so different, once they leave the terrible building. As in the Bare Lands, nothing is _physically_ wrong with the landscape. There is still no chakra for him or his summoner to grasp at, but that should pass once they clear the lands that have come too close to something Other.

(In some ways, it is very different than a trek across the Bare Lands. They leave the building of gore and blood, and pass streets of humans who seem to have fallen dead where they stand. The unseen evil is still there, watching. It does not feel as though it has the power to do anything more. But it feels as though it _wants_ to do a great many things.

Some of the shapes on the ground are very small).

It takes moments to leave the road that circles the village, but it also takes far too long. The unseen evil does not follow across the road, but Heijomaru knows it is still there, watching and staring out as Heijomaru runs and runs and runs in the direction his Summoner directs.

Heijomaru runs far past the point where the village could be seen behind him, runs so far that he can't feel the heated, oppressive cloud of the watching Thing, and still he does not look back.

* * *

The hole in the torn fabric of the world starts to have edges, and pieces, and fragments, instead of only a gaping loss.

He approaches the Leaf Clan at what his summoner has called the Border Station. She clutches at him, hands tight on his fur, and she is more quiet than he would like- but her spirit does not sicken as much as he feared it would.

Chakra is still not yet real enough for any living thing to grasp at, though the ghost-scent of it has started to tingle in the air at last, as Heijomaru begins to gain enough distance away from that gaping hole of What Should Be. Once he goes half again this distance, Heijomaru knows, the lands should start to clear enough for minor chakra use.

From the directions his Summoner has already given, the grounds of Sembei's tribe should be far enough away that they will not have to find new lands. (It would be a long wait. This land is well-scarred by its contact with the Other, and Heijomaru will be instructing his tribe that five hundred years may not be too long a time for them keep avoiding the road-circle the watching evil is contained within. He knows his summoner will never ask them to go back there).

Heijomaru drags his thoughts away to happier thoughts, as he waits for the Leaf Clan elders to arrive. It goes slow, without chakra. But the ghost-scent of chakra in the air is reassuring enough, even if it is not yet real enough to touch.

The members of the Leaf Clan at the border station do not seem to appreciate this.

"Shikako?" asks one- his summoner's sire.

His summoner transitions her grip from Heijomaru's fur to her sire's deerskin vest. The man tugs her down, off Heijomaru's back, and holds her closer to him, as if Heijomaru is part of what his summoner needs protecting from.

"What _happened_," he snaps at Heijomaru.

Heijomaru doesn't appreciate the tone, or the body language, or the deerskin vest. He tosses his head, and doesn't answer.

"Something tried to come _in_," she says to her sire in a voice that tries so card to be controlled. "It- it made the world different. It- I need to report to the Hokage. It's still _there_."

Her sire holds her in both arms very tightly. "Hot Springs?" he asks.

There's a nod. "The road- it circles around the village. Don't cross over. The village was a seal." His summoner buries her face in her sire's chest. Her voice is raspy, and her shoulders shake. Others of the Leaf Clan look over curiously, and Heijomaru doesn't approve of their insensitivity.

"You should eat and drink again," Heijomaru instructs her. "You are still recovering."

His summoner lifts her head up to nod, and her sire beings to gently guide her towards a small wooden building. As the three of them being to make their way, she takes out her canteen from the hidden space-fold by her writs, and takes a sip.

Her sire stares.

(Heijomaru did think it was unusual for humans of this realm to use sealing techniques without chakra. Its good to know he wasn't imagining things).

After a moment, his summoner looks up. She blinks, once or twice, then looks down at herself. Looks over at her sire.

"Oh." She says, in a very small voice. "Your vest- its- I ruined it."

Her sire looks stricken.

Heijomaru has never before had an opinion on human wardrobe choices, but in this case he doesn't exactly mourn the loss.


End file.
